STOP IT! STOP IT! STOP IT! If you can't write then please DO NOT WRITE

I am so frustrated right now. Here I am drinking my morning coffee and reading through my HP offerings. And, there they are! Person after person, with names that I have no chance to pronounce, writing articles (usually their first) that just the title alone, MAKES NO SENSE!OK, all of you bleeding heart out there, just calm down, I'm not attacking people who are truly trying to write and have the occasional spelling or grammar error in their writings.I understand their problems and that's OK.But these people, usually from the other side of the world, who are blatantly copying other articles or even worse, who are using some crappy translator, need to be blocked. I flag them, but when you get a half dozen or more of these in your listings almost every morning is just too much.STOP IT! STOP IT! STOP IT!DON

Unfortunately, I understand what you're talking about. I haven't witnessed this first hand on Hub Pages, but I occasionally post on a site that had a major problem with spun content, primarily because they paid for "likes" and "comments" received.

A lot of people--I won't say from the other side of the world, but a number of them were from other countries--made it into an easy money game. They plagiarized articles, translated them with programs, or spun some of them to where they made no sense whatsoever. Some people didn't bother to change the articles at all.

They also liked posts, made nonsensical comments, and other posters did the same for them. Their system worked. Lots of them had thousands of followers and made hundreds of dollars monthly.

Eventually, the site changed the way they reimbursed posters. They raised the payout minimum and unless posters were from the US or UK, they had a 90 day waiting period on payments.

The site had a big plagiarism problem. Since a lot of the "writers" were young and didn't speak English, I sincerely believe that many of them didn't understand the concept of "plagiarism."

Who are these people? Followers? I understand your frustration. However, you can't just say the other side of the world, because there are good and bad writers. I know you don't mean it that way. We just get angry at people who are not competent no matter who they are. Let's get rid of all the copycats, bad grammar and spelling and make this site rise and shine with the best writers in the whole wide world. I am on your side, yayyyyy!

Awhile back I remember reading a young woman's article that she had posted on the forums. It was one of those posts that asked the rest of the Hub world what they thought of it.

Gently, or so I perceived, I offered that she should enroll in an English course so that she could write the language more fluently. She was genuine and she agreed with what I'd said, and then she disappeared from HubPages.

The problem was, I missed her poorly written bits on the forums and in her articles. She had an interesting life and now there was no more news of it for HubPages.

Not that I take any particular blame upon myself; my advice was sound. Yet still, there's a part of me that remembers one of my teachers telling me to 'keep writing', even after I turned in something poorly written.

My writing has gotten better over time. By no means am I Shakespeare, but because I kept writing, my English works got better. I took some college courses. I watched how others tackled style and worked hard to develop my own.

I'm glad no one on HubPages said I should 'Stop!' when I started here.

My sentiments exactly. English is my 2nd language and it's taking me forever to learn the nuances of the language. I envy creative writers who can breathe life into words. I was following them around when I was still in Bubblews (dariann999, candlelight, andyman, lobo...) and I saw a hubber of the same caliber a few days ago. I am not saying that she's the only one: probably, I need to read more hubs to see how other hubbers are doing it. I admire writers who can write effortlessly where the words just seem to flow out of their hands. I may not be as good as they are --- but, like the rest of us, it will be a long learning process for me.

During my stay with HubPages, I have observed many similar hubs written by people from your part of the world also. I even cannot believe ........ and I am sad to say .......... Some of them are written by those top level hubbers in your part of the world.

LasanthaW- OK! You should have written; "I have also observed similar hubs written by people from you part of the world". The "also is misplaced.And the next sentence should have been; "it is sad for me to say that some of them are written by certain top level hubbers in your part of the world"My point here is not your self or actually, any single person. But rather, I am seeing an inordinate number of new "want-to-be" hubbers who think they can make their fortune because they have a computer with an English translator. What so many people do not realize is that American English is different from British English, and from Indian English.It is usually all about the slang used and subtly different sentence structures that are made blatantly obvious if not changed.Each of our brains, regardless of nationality or culture are "tuned" to hear their own English, whether spoken or read.I was complaining about the ones who obviously do not care, throw some trash on the site for maybe one or two hubs before they are eventually blocked by HP anyway.Give me quality content and I will read it.Give me trash, and them make it poorly written trash, and just as I suspect you would in your home, I COMPLAIN!

My complaint goes farther than yours because I see many people from the US as well as from other countries making horrible mistakes in writing, structure, spelling and grammar, not to mention producing articles with incorrect information or that have a good deal of "spin" or plagiarism in them.

I'm sick of it, especially because many of them show up on the forums asking for help...like it is our job to teach people what they should have already learned before trying to write here at HP.

These are the same people who don't follow the guidelines or do the research, etc. and yet wonder why they are having problems.

I have said it before, and I will say it again...HP is not school. School is what you go to to learn the tools of your trade before you try to work at it. Many people here have it all backwards, and we should stop trying to support them.

Amen, Time Traveler. When I joined HP, I was afraid I wasn't good enough and would get booted off because the first hub I read was beautifully written about the author's project and contained wonderful photos the writer had taken. Then I discovered that HP will take anyone regardless of ability or experience. That was culture shock for me.

That used to be the case, which is part of the problem here now because the earlier articles never went through the QAP. Also, the QAP has flaws that still allow poor writers to join the site, unfortunately. Supposedly there are things set up now to keep poor writers from coming onto this site, but again and again I see people breaking every rule in the book and still having their hubs featured.

I agree with Don that those with poor English skills, no matter how good their thoughts and ideas are, should no be here. I don't care where they come from, this is an American English writers' site and when US citizens or anybody else comes here without the necessary basic skills they drag the whole site down and all of us lose views and money.

What interests me is that many of these people come onto the forums asking for help, and when people give it to them without the sugar coating or minimizing, they get really upset and start bashing people for being rude, etc.

Someone here told Don to just not read those articles, but that is not the point. Whether you read them or not, they hurt all of us.

Imagine a site where everybody uses correct grammar and spelling, does not spam, and writes interesting informative articles! Wouldn't that be great? We may never attain that goal, but we certainly should not be undermining it by allowing low quality writing or site abuse here.

It is very upsetting to work really hard to create something good and then get slammed by Google for being part of a site that allows this junk.

As you can see, some of us here are upset by it. Good thing we can vent on these forums!!

Just to clarify....my advice is not to simply ignore poor articles. It is to ignore poor articles that have not been assessed. There is a big difference.

It's a waste of time flagging articles that had not been through QAP. It's also pointless getting upset and angry about poor quality new hubs that have not been QAPed.

It's unfortunate that hubs hit the feed before they've been assessed and many hubbers see them. That should be changed because it causes some hubbers a lot of stress and gives a false picture of what articles are being featured.

I don't even think is whether or not one uses American,British or any other English. I think the issue is with poorly written/spun content; grammar, spelling,punctuation mistakes and so on. Whether done by a person or by a translating software, it's still the same and overall hurts the site's reputation in the eyes of Google, Bing etc.

Being British I understand your concerns, daily I endure the desecration of the English language by American writers on the Internet, my strongly worded Tweets to Matt Cutts went unanswered when I demanded that every article in non standard English be removed from the Internet immediately.

I can only console myself, and you should too, in the fact that only the most grammatically and syntactically perfect writing will rise to the top and the $**t will sink to the bottom.

I'm not sure I agree with your last statement. I follow one hubber who hops professional websites, steals their photos and rewrites their copy (and does a poor job of that). She is very prolific, writing at least three hubs per week. I first became aware of what she was doing when she mislabeled a photo of a park in our city. I keep following her just to see what ridiculous thing she is going to do next.

If there's anything that rises to the level of justifying reporting, please do so. Those things will probably hit us hard when the next Panda update (or whatever zoo creature is in vogue) hits the search engines.

You just said it all. Everybody here who is making excuses for substandard writing simply does not get the point of this thread.

I'm going to say this again as clearly as I can: Don is not pitting professionals against amateurs here. He is not dissing people who sincerely come here with basic skills and are trying hard to learn to write successfully. He isn't even condemning people who simply love to write and want to share their thoughts here.

He is, however, disgusted with people who do not have the basic skills they should have before trying to produce acceptable material on this site. This is because this level of work undermines the credibility and quality of the work of the others here.

Would you try to perform surgery without having gone to medical school? Would you enter a horse race having never learned to ride? Would you try to repair a flat tire if you had never learned how to do it?

Of course not. Well, people who come here without knowing how to use the English language fall into those categories. They are misplaced. Furthermore, one by one, they are going to be removed as time goes on, and they will have spent their time, their hopes and their dream pursuing something that will never produce anything meaningful for them.

It is unfair (regardless of what some of you may think) to them as well as to those who are qualified enough to write here, and it is very frustrating for those who spend endless hours trying to earn a bit of income and hone their skills as well.

I just don't get why people can't see this. It isn't a matter of reading or not reading somebody's work or even the fact that many people in this country do have poor skills and would not know the difference between good and bad language use.

To the woman who said something about reading the stock market report...really? How can you possibly compare something like that to something like this? I agree with your premise that no matter how well an article is written, if the topic is not interesting to people, they will not read it, but that has nothing to do with this discussion.

It's hard enough to give readers what they want without having Google lower this sites ranking for poor content and structure. Why would any of you want to make this worse and possibly lose HP altogether?

That's what low quality leads to, and that is what you are supporting when you jump on Don for his rant. If you feel that way about the other aspects of your day to day lives, God help you.

I am not jumping on anybody, as it is not my nature. I speak my truth. I believe, that if you don't make the grade, you're bound to be booted out by the system sooner or later. Trying is not a bad thing. If your work is unacceptable, it gets unfeatured. The worst is, nobody reads it. Ranting in a forum like this one is like shooting bullets with everyone as target. Well, unless HP tells me that I don't make the grade, I am staying put and write my hubs.

Btw, I like stockmarket reports and they're badly written half of the time. I'd read them over a well-written article, whose subject matter doesn't interest me, at a drop of a hat. A matter of preference, I guess.

You are one of those that I follow in the forums, and I learned much from the clarity of your discussions. Reading your comments to threads is a learning process for me. I get to see how simply you put your point across, by the use of a few emphatic words.

Yep, HP unfeaturing our work is penalty enough. As what I have said previously, the HP team will eventually catch up on those that do not make the grade and boot them out.

But, some gets better over time. I am now editing some of my work, and I say, "Yak! Horrid!" I hope I get to edit them sooner, before the HP team gives me the axe!

Comparing being able to write and riding a horse or performing surgery is a pretty big leap. Most people can write, just to different degrees of proficiency. I'm sure most people here have learned English in school, either as a native or second language, so they are supposedly qualified to use the language. And I'm not sure what your idea of "acceptable material" is, but I'm sure you are qualified in every possible way to make that judgement for everyone else.

If you think such nonsensical combinations of words are entertaining or should be regularly flashed in our faces, then please, please, move on to another site, and do not drag this excellent writer's site and its participants down with your lack of standards.

And, yes, second languages are hard to master. That is a given fact we are all willing to deal with. I am a diabetic and there are several Doctors from the Far East who write some very good articles on health issues and treatments used in their countries.

Is their use of the English language perfect? You know the answer; NO. But their writings are readable, and not what I gave here as a real example of the "unconstructed tripe" that is being let through and onto Hubs.

I don't see it as a big leap at all. We are speaking here of skill levels, and clearly, some people are more skilled at specific tasks than others. My point was that we should all want the best possible quality we can have, no matter the situation. Many doctors carry the title "surgeon", but which one would I want to have operating on me? The one who graduated at the top of his class, or the bottom?

When substandard, low skill writers come onto this site, they drag it down. It's great for them because maybe they learn and grow, but they are doing it at the expense of the others here who are good at what they do and want their rankings to stay high so that they can earn some money and have a sense of pride.

I just do not understand how people think it's OK to sacrifice the many for the few or to allow the unskilled to damage something that has been so productive and good.

Again, for me this is nothing personal against anybody. It is simply a matter of common sense. I think many here have taken offense because they are unsure of their own skills, but the truth is that most of them do a pretty darned good job when it comes to using the language.

SpaceShanty- Exactly! I wasn't so much knocking the world's different versions of the English language as I was venting. Venting at the amazing CRAP these poor people post in their deluded hopes of becoming rich.And, of course there was the Pakistani article I received two days ago. So much fun to read! LOL!

The automatic translators are becoming better & better - and that is troubling. I regularly see profiles that are illiterate and rife with errors, but (surprise!) the person posts hubs that are almost professional in quality. Except, of course, for the unusual choices of words here and there, or the oddly crafted sentences. I don't know how or why these get past QAP.

That might be what I've spotted in some cases. I do know there are far too many hubs that have gone through a translator. Some have spun words in the titles, and the results are laughable. Or horrible.

For instance, a title such as "How My Comrade Enlightened About Cooking" should say, "How My Friend Learned to Cook." That's an example I made up, but it's very close to a real example I saw recently. The words are similar, but the title no longer makes sense.

Damn, a British comedian! Of course we all think we are going to get rich. We all think some mysterious publisher is reading one of our works and is searching for our phone number, contract in hand. And as you say, we are all (well mostly) delusional. Oh, excuse me for a moment, my phone is ringing! It could be the one, you know....... OK, I'm back. it was just the damned Air Conditioning guy!Where was I? Oh yeah, something about money? And getting Rich?No Thanks. It would just ruin my attitude about my fellow man.DON

You, know for some people, maybe this site is a place for them to learn to formulate their expressive side and they really aren't trying to become anything more than better writers. I am not one to tear others down and think that if you don't want to be burdened with less accomplished writers than yourself, that's your business. But maybe you should consider not being so overly judgmental considering this really isn't a professional writers organization or place where accomplished journalists come to highlight their works.

This is all well and good for people who just want to hone their skills, but for those who want this site to be able to remain online and successful, not so much.

This is not a matter of judging people, but rather one of expecting people to at least have the basic competencies to be able to produce a readable sentence. The people Don is referring to cannot do this, but by being here, they are damaging the site.

I guess it all depends on how you look at this issue, but many here are professional writers and want this site to be as credible as possible because some use their articles as portfolios. When editors check the sources, if they see low quality work, it reflects on the writers trying to sell their articles elsewhere. Furthermore, Google lowers our ranking due to low quality, so in the end, we all pay the price.

Writers and writings come in many forms. Maybe the work you consider "CRAP" is meant to be unclear and nonsensical in a very artistic sense, like cubism, futurism and other abstract art. In fact, I see deep insights in the minimalist approach many Hubbers have taken, allowing us plenty of room to read between the very widely-spaced lines of their hubs. Just because a sentence just seems like a mishmash of random words doesn't mean it is void of meaning. Perhaps you just don't have the patience to read into these hubs and just dismiss them on the assumption that they are "CRAP" because they don't make any sense to you or anyone else.

There is a difference between satire, abstract, or nonsensical work skillfully done and what Don is terming "crap". I follow a couple of people who can't write worth a darn, but they do express their unique thoughts in a creative way that I understand. I put up with their poor grammar hoping they will improve. But there are people who think crap and don't have a clear thought in their heads. When you try to help them, they tell you to bug off, they'll write anyway they please.

Well, to be fair they do have a right to write as they please. Saying someone is "thinking crap" is a bit harsh, as the same was and is usually said about great thinkers and artists. I think that the people who post these "crap" articles are actually just way ahead of most of us in their thought processes, and since we can't understand them some of us label it "crap". They might actually be bordering in genius.

Its all still very simple, firstly ranting and raving will not get you anywhere except to expose a side of you that if truth be told is best kept hidden. Secondly like it or not, not everyone is going to meet the standards you have set but this is what keeps things interesting ..... thirdly, yet still nobody is forcing you to read anybody else's work.

I have just signed up, but I have been observing HubPages quietly in the background for a little while. To me, it appears that these people have confused HubPages with a social networking/blogging site.

I read a lot. Sometimes, other languages that hub pages uses are in the English wave site. You need to skip it if it bothers you. It can be disturbing to the mind. Otherwise, it does not disturb me. Sometimes, we get to the pages that people are working and it is not publish to the clean and perfect writing. Meaning, it is a messy work. It is better to accept the mistakes of other people. Because some of us, we all make a mistake at the bottom of the page. You need to read what you love. Have a pleasant day. Peace and love

What if it's just a typographical error. . well I think, at times it could not be avoided especially if you're in a hurry. . but for those who indeed copying articles of others without any changing even the lead sentences. . you must really stop it!

Do not forget my dear that a few months ago. Some other professional and love writers joined hub pages. Someone need to fix them or select them. I love any writer. Because I also learn from mistakes. They might have a few mistakes, but the content of the article is better than some of those hubs that are perfect in grammar. Besides, a few times the tool bar stops for some people that complained a few times. They do not have yime to fix it or they gorgot. Because they only had a chance to write one article. That it is why they moved to hub pages. Because hub pages gives the opportunity to everyone who cares. Blessing to you.

The great thing about a democracy is that everyone has the same rights.

But, as you digress into the "Business world" that democratic ideal moves into the world of commercial and competitive ideals. There, my friends, there is no democracy, per se. Rather, there is a world based on financial ideals. Things like; income and profits rule rather than idealisms.

Those of you who feel Hp is a democracy, with all of those liberties implied by such, are, sad to say, deluded.HP is first and foremost, a place for making money. I mean really, did you think your recipe for mashed potatoes was going to save the world? Of course not, you wanted to share your great recipe so that everyone could enjoy it. And, of course, if it was popular, making a couple of bucks was OK too, right?Its the same with everyone of us who write in all of the categories available; poetry, short stories, recipes, and on and on. And, as I mentioned, its OK if we make a few bucks when they are popular.So, here we are, a group of writers who, as we have admitted, want to make a buck if out stuff is good. Right?So, is HP a social media site where we have a group of select friends who kiss each others butt? Or, are we a group of WRITERS, (and yes I used all caps for emphasis) who want to grow together with other WRITERS (yes,real WRITERS), not people who are DUMPING such; horrendous, copied, poorly translated works originally written by others in our laps?I think not.If you are the writer I mention, then join me in complaining.If you are a "socialite" who really doesn't care, I am so sad for you, but, I respect your right (I am a liberal at heart, OK?) to be you.I only ask that you ot support the amalgamation of our (the real, struggling) writers and help us stop this dumping of such trash onto us.respectfully, DON

HP is doing a good job on quality control. My article on the lenten season did not pass QAP and was unfeatured the other day. Even the best writers of this site are having problems with their hubs suddenly being unfeatured. Unless you are with the HP team, I don't think that any hubber will just pull out of the site because you say that they are cranking out low quality work, like baking cookies, etc. If you are a good writer, you'll get work even if you're in the company of scums. I use my site as work portfolio, and I get jobs by showing the links to my hubs (a pitiable 28 of them) --- though I am not even an elite writer.

So you would consider a hub with a mashed potato recipe to be real WRITING? I don't feel that posting a food recipe is WRITING, just as the instructions you receive on how to assemble a bookcase is not WRITING either.

I admire them for trying - I know you can lash out at me. I understand quality is important and that is why HP has he hub score and the no follow. Kudos to HP for designing it as an open vehicle to learn and grow.

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